Ten seconds before the South Napa Earthquake struck, UC Berkeley's ShakeAlert predicted the quake.
The university's early warning project is intended to give residents a heads-up before an earthquake strikes and damage occurs.
To predict the quakes, scientists use a sensor to detect the arrival of the first round of waves called primary waves or p-waves. These waves are fast but rarely cause any damage. P-waves are followed by secondary waves or s-waves which are slower but do more harm.
ShakeAlert provided warning at the UC Berkeley Seismological Laboratory and more warning to users in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose. The system is being developed by UC Berkeley and the United States Geological Survey in cooperation with scientists at California Institute of Technology and University of Washington.
Under the Disaster Relief Act of 1974, the USGS is tasked with issuing alerts and enhancing public safety around earthquakes. While USGS already issues rapid, automatic earthquake information via the Internet, email, text messages and social media it does not currently employ an early warning system and ShakeAlert does not currently have enough funding to become fully operational.
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Lindsey Hoshaw is a coordinating producer for QUEST Northern California where she creates digital videos, online interactives and web articles. Before joining KQED, Lindsey was a science correspondent for The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Forbes and Scientific American. She was recently awarded the Frank Allen Field Reporting Award and is especially interested in ocean science, the future of sustainable seafood and the great pacific garbage patch. She can be found on Twitter as @thegarbagegirl
Entities 0 Name: UC Berkeley Count: 2 1 Name: USGS Count: 2 2 Name: Boston Globe Count: 1 3 Name: Frank Allen Count: 1 4 Name: Lindsey Count: 1 5 Name: California Institute of Technology and University of Washington Count: 1 6 Name: ShakeAlert Count: 1 7 Name: South Napa Earthquake Count: 1 8 Name: UC Berkeley Seismological Laboratory Count: 1 9 Name: San Jose Count: 1 10 Name: The New York Times Count: 1 11 Name: Northern California Count: 1 12 Name: United States Count: 1 13 Name: Forbes Count: 1 14 Name: Lindsey Hoshaw Count: 1 15 Name: San Francisco Count: 1 16 Name: Oakland Count: 1 17 Name: KQED Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1mDKcvV Title: The Bay Area just got hit with its largest earthquake in 25 years Description: At 3:20 a.m. Pacific time on Sunday, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.0 hit the San Francisco Bay Area. The USGS reports that it occurred 6.7 miles below the surface, with an epicenter just south of Napa and about 30 miles northeast of San Francisco.
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